Although Easter is a month away, Easter candy has already hit the shelves.

The packaging is the same bright lemony color as traditional Lemonhead packaging, and it features the grape, cherry, orange, apple, and traditional lemon mascots. Springtime novelty aside, the design is pretty typical for this brand. The logo and mascots haven’t changed much over the years, but I think this classic, familiar, look suits the product.

Although the package boasts “springtime shapes” all of the candies in my bag were chick-shaped. According to the website, I was supposed to have bunny shaped jellies as well, but this bag had no bunnies at all. (I guess quality control dropped the ball on this one.)

The candies all have a generic gumdrop/jelly bean scent. They smell like sugar and generic fruity flavors. Even when I smelled the individual flavors, none of them had a distinct fruity smell.

Inside there are 5 different colors/flavors:

• Red: Cherry - the flavor is a lot like a cherry Jolly Rancher, but it is much sweeter.
• Orange: Orange - has a nice clementine flavor and a citrus peel taste. I really liked these, and I normally dislike orange candies.
• Yellow: Lemon - Tasted a lot like lemon Pledge…this was pretty bad.
• Green: Apple - this one tasted like a very artificial green apple.
• Purple: Grape - is very mild and artificial, it’s the only flavor that is similar to it’s hard candy counterpart.

I love jellies and gumdrops, but some flavors of this variety are better than others. (Lemon was the worst in the bag, and I feel like orange was the best.) Would I buy these again? No, but I don’t regret my purchase. (Unless they made a bag with all orange.)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Caramel Apple Sugar Babies - Target: Cherry Hill, NJ

While this flavor combination is more fall than winter, I couldn’t fit it in due to all the pumpkin posts I had lined up. So here it (finally) is!

The box is really bright and obnoxious. Nothing really seems to make sense, circles…triangles…squiggles. The little flag-like images remind me of bacon. For as long as I can remember, this brand has always had very bright designs.

Inside the box the candy is loose, which is rare these days. A lot of boxed candies now have a bag inside, but this is the first time in a while that I have bought something that was loose inside the box. 

The candy has no smell at all. I can smell the cardboard box and nothing else.

These apple coated Sugar Babies are BRIGHT green. It was actually startling to see how bright green they were.

Although they have no smell and look like they were covered in highlighter, the taste is very plesant. I you have ever had Caramel Apple Pop’s (made by Tootsie) then you’d really like these. The artificial apple outside is tangy, and crumbles as you chew. While the inside is the classic caramel Sugar Baby taste I grew up with.

This candy won me over with it’s taste, not it’s packaging or even nostalgia. I enjoyed it, but I am happy with just having one box. I don’t think I’ll be buying another box for a while.

(Look closely! There is a little stow away in one of these photos. You can see more of him on my other tumblr account)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Caramel Apple Milkyway - Walmart : Cherry Hill, NJ

I picked these up at Walmart because Milkyways are my favorite candy bar. (I love them frozen.) I was excited to try my favorite chocolate bar a new flavor. 

I had seen reviews of these before, on Candy Blog, but I had to try these for myself.

The packaging is VERY red. To me, it looks like a candy apple instead of a caramel one.  I think a lot more could have been done to convey a caramel apple, but overall it isn’t terrible packaging.

When I opened the wrapper I could smell cinnamon. A LOT of cinnamon. There is a slight apple aroma, but the cinnamon really stands out as the strongest smell.

Taking a bite, the first thing I could taste was the fluffy cinnamon mixed with nougat. After that, I got a hint of apple mixed with caramel and a nice chocolate finish.

A caramel apple does not include cinnamon, so this does not taste like a caramel apple. These candies are very sweet too, I can’t eat more than one or two in a sitting. While these were interesting, and fun to try, I didn’t care for the flavor. It doesn’t taste like any caramel apple I’ve ever had, and I wouldn’t miss this flavor if it didn’t return next fall.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Kasugai Fruits Mix Gummy Candy - ???

I picked this up from a random convenience store while walking around Philly a while ago. (I really can’t remember where.)

After trying these gummis before, in THIS sampler,  I was excited to get more of them. 

The bag is simple, but it uses stunning images of fresh fruit. I just want to reach into the image and eat a real grape.

Opening the bag I was shocked, there were no grape at all! Only Apple and muscat. I originally thought maybe the grape candies were at the top where I couldn’t see through the bag, but there were none at all! Quality control really dropped the ball on this one.

I have had these flavors before and I really liked all three, but the grape was my favorite! What a disappointment.

(Here are my reviews of the APPLE and MUSCAT)

While I love these candies, I’ll stick to buying individual bags from the Asian grocery store near my home. That way I know what flavors I am getting.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Puccho (Ultra Miracle w/AKB48) - Asian Food Market : Cherry Hill, NJ

Puccho are yummy chewy candies, similar to the brand Hi-Chew, that come in a variety of flavors. I was so excited, I bought one of each flavor in The Asian Food Market. The flavors are: cola, white strawberry (aka pineberry), and ultra miracle.

Today, we’ll be looking at ULTRA MIRACLE! The packaging is really bright and colorful. I really like how energetic it looks, but it is VERY busy. This flavor was the only one of the three to have the popular group AKB48 promo on the package. (If you don’t know who there are THIS has more info.)

Right now, AKB48 are doing a (kind of disturbing) promo for the candy. This promo involves all the girls of one group passing one of these candies down to each other using their mouths. This is a play on the candy’s name “puccho,” which is similar to a kiss. So the girls pass it ‘kiss-style’ to one another. It is only disturbing to me, because these girls are young, they are scouted by a company from schools to participate in this organization, and the extreme creepy reaction this commercial is getting from their older male fans. This is commercialism, not love.

Okay, enough creepy commercial rants, back to the candy itself. Now, what flavor is ultra miracle? The name doesn’t really tell us much at all, and the packaging doesn’t describe the flavor in English, so I had to look it up online. It is meant to be a sweet yogurt chew with stripes of pineapple and apple. Inside, there are sweet bouncy gummy spheres and some soda spheres. Let’s open it up and give it a try.

The wrapper shows the candy mascot in costumes or doing all sorts of activities. This time he looks like he is a little pirate! Adorable.

The candy itself is very similar to a high chew, but this is multicolored. I can see the apple and pine apple stripes on the outside and a hint of the gummies on the sides of the chew.

It doesn’t really smell like much, but when I put it in my mouth I was really surprised by how strong the flavors were! Right away I can taste the pineapple and the soda spheres. They fizz in your mouth just like the inside of Zots candy. The apple flavor becomes more obvious after the soda fizz dies down, and I could barely sense the little gummies inside.

These were REALLY refreshing. I wasn’t expecting this flavor to be so bright and fizzy. I really like this flavor and I hope it is a permanent addition and not some special limited flavor.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Black Forest Fruit Snacks - Aldi, NJ

Who says fruit snacks are for kids? I am in my 20’s and still love them. I saw this HUGE box of juice-filled fruit snacks at Aldi and instantly tossed them into my cart. 

The box art isn’t amazing, but the large crate of fruit on the front really caught my eye. I love pictures of food, so that easily grabbed my attention. The second thing I liked was that these snacks had Vitamin C, not that these are vitamins by any means, but it was still nice to have a little something good in my candy.

Each little pouch contains 4 flavors of juice-filled fruit snacks.

• Apple - (shaped like a granny smith apple) The snack is a really dark green, but it does taste like artificial green apple. The flavor reminds me a lot of Jolly Rancher’s green apple, except this is not as tart. The juice filling has a tangy-ness that must be from the Vitamin C, and it tastes like apple juice concentrate.
• Cherry - (A generic berry shape) The cherry is a nice berry red color. The flavor is actually really nice! It isn’t very artificial tasting at all, but similar to a real ripe red cherry. Inside, the juice has the same tangy flavor, but this time juice is more of a cherry concentrate.
• Lemon - (Lemon shaped) The lemon shapes were a little sad and deflated looking, this was how all the lemons in all the bags were shaped. The lemon tasted a little generic, the gummy itself could have been any citrus fruit. If I didn’t know better I could have thought it was lime or orange. However, the filling tasted like lemon water ice. The filling was amazing!
• Grape - (Shaped like a bunch of grapes) The grape is a really deep purple color, just like grape jelly in a jar. The gummy itself tastes just like grape jelly too! Inside, the filling seems to be a grape juice concentrate, but I don’t get the same tangy flavor as I did with the other fillings. Maybe the deeper and complex flavor of grape hides the Vitamin C better. 

These snacks were yummy, and I got A LOT of them for my money. I really liked that. I would definitely buy them again, but I wish they offered more flavors.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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